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- [00:02]
A
I love days like these at the pool, but my moderate to severe plaque psoriasis can sometimes take me out of the moment. I'm ready to make a splash with clearer skin thanks to Skyrizi risankizumab RZA Skyrizi is a prescription only injection for adults who are candidates for systemic or phototherapy. At four months, most people saw 90% clearer skin when measured from head to toe and many were even 100% plaque free. People also saw significant improvement in psoriasis, symptoms of pain, redness, itching and burning.
- [00:31]
B
Don't use if allergic to Skyrizi. Serious allergic reactions, increased infections or lower ability to fight them may occur before treatment. Get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor about any flu like symptoms or vaccines.
- [00:43]
A
Now there's nothing on my skin thanks to Skyrizi and that means everything. Ask your doctor about Skyrizi, the number one dermatologist prescribed biologic and psoriasis. Visit skyrizi.com or call 1-866-Skyrizi to learn more.
- [01:00]
B
Everyone treats summer like it owes you happiness. Long days, pool parties, your best life on a loop. So what does it mean when you feel worse? The summer blues are real. It's why summer is one of the busiest stretches of the year for people starting Therapy Grow Therapy is here for all the moments when you decide you want more. More support, more clarity, more tools. GROW connects you with thousands of high quality licensed therapists across the US offering both virtual and in person sessions, nights and weekends. The therapist you want takes your insurance on. Grow grow accepts over 125 insurance plans. Sessions average $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. Visit growtherapy.com acast today to get started. That's growtherapy.com acast growtherapy.com acast availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. Could AI help you do more of what you love? Workday is the AI platform for HR and finance that actually knows your business. We help you handle the have to dos so you can focus on the can't wait to dos. It's a new workday.
- [02:17]
C
It is not necessarily surprising that I had never seen the musical Fun Home before Thursday. This because it was on Broadway. Prior to my visits there I didn't get a chance to see the US national tour. The London production at the Young Vic Theatre was fairly short lived and it was during a period when my theatre going had slowed down a little bit. There was a production in Dublin last summer that I tried to see but I couldn't make it work. And so this regional version at the Royal Exchange in Manchester was my first experience of the show. The not necessarily surprising, perhaps more surprising, given how celebrated this show has been since it first premiered, is that I have been keeping it from myself deliberately and I have been keeping myself in the dark. This because there are fairly few truly great shows from yesteryear, as in not premiering newly, that I have the chance to experience without knowing anything about it beforehand and truly take in all at once. And I was so excited to get to do that with Fun Home, beyond having heard like Ring of Keys and knowing the basic premise of the narrative. However, when a show is as celebrated and acclaimed and recommended to me as this one has been, it creates an awfully high pedestal for the thing that feels almost impossible for it to live up to. Those of you who know the show will not be surprised to learn that of course it absolutely did. That's because Fun Home is an extraordinary piece of musical theatre writing. Let me tell you why. Oh my God. Hey, welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Or hello to those of you listening to this review on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo and I am obsessed with all things theatre. I am a professional theatre critic and content creator here on social media. I see hundreds of shows every single year and then I sit down here and tell you all about them. If you're not watching my review on YouTube right now, you can also listen to it. You can sign up to my free weekly substack newsletter to stay up to date with all of the shows that I'm seeing. But needless to say, today we are going to be talking about the Royal Exchange's newly opened production of the musical Fun Home. The Exchange, for those of you who don't know, is this fascinating in the round multi tier theatre, the auditorium looks like something that might have been sent to space in the 1970s 70s and it is suspended within this historic exchange building. Utterly unique theatrical venue. As such, this production is also an intimate one, directed in the round. We're going to talk about those creative choices, we're going to talk about those performances, and we're also going to talk about this material which I was encountering for the very first time. Of course, if you are not as new to Fun Home as I am and you would like to share your thoughts about it, or indeed this production in the comment section down below, please do so. I would love to hear more perspectives on this show. For now though, let me tell you exactly what I thought or of this Production and the musical Fun Home. So I called this a musical from yesteryear. It's not all that old in the grand scheme of things. It premiered on Broadway in the 2010s, and for those of you who don't know what this is, it is, unusually, an adaptation of a graphic novel, which is a fascinating concept in and of itself. It hasn't been done all that often. That graphic novel is an autobiographical work from the celebrated queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, whose name you may recognize in a certain association with the Bechdel Test, a way of assessing the feminist qualities of a piece of cinema. Usually its criteria being that two named female characters have a conversation of a certain length about a topic other than a man, which I believe Fun Home passes. In any case, the story being told here, and this is presented to us fairly early on, so it's not as much a spoiler as it may seem. Like one is Alison reflecting on her childhood, specifically reflecting on her relationship with her father, with whom she had little in common, but all also more in common than she realized. Because while her childhood was characterized by these alternate periods of very warm tactile affection and these other moments of cold detachment amidst her father's tendency for being very particular and wanting everything in the home to look immaculate and be presented in a very pristine, historic way, when Allison moves out to attend college, she has a queer awakening and discovers that she is a lesbian, something that she subsequently tries to communicate with her parents. After experiencing her first romantic relationship. She only at that point finds out from her mother, who admittedly has led a complex existence as part of a dysfunctional marriage that her father has for her entire life and for his entire life been a closeted homosexual. Early on in her retrospective narration, as we see her trying to piece together the memories that are going to inform this graphic novel as she is illustrating it, writing it in real time, Alison says something, something to the effect of my father and I both grew up in the same small town and we were nothing alike, and we were exactly alike, and he was gay and I was gay and he killed himself. That is the premise of Fun Home and that is what we are exploring. And because of these parallels between these two queer existences, it is, I think, among the most important and the most encompassing LGBTQ musicals. Also worth pointing out that many of that sub genre are Pride musicals. I'm not just talking about the recently opened Pride the Musical in London playing at the National Theatre, but also more well known works like Le Cage aux Fall, that is a Gay Pride musical It's a musical about the freedom of living openly and joyously. This is a queer shame musical, which is not to say that it is asserting that or that it denies its characters queer joy at every turn. It offers us some really uplifting, anthemic moments of queer recognition from this character. From Alice, Alison's perspective, really at multiple ages of her life, such as Ring of Keys, such as Changing My Major to Joan, those being two songs in the show when Allison is really getting to know herself on a deep emotional level. But it's character motivations, it's plot motivations. The thing that it's really investigating with Alison having, you know, found this joy for herself, what she's reflecting on and searching amongst like it's another object in a cardboard box of possessions that have been left to her, is this sense of traumatic shame. And what that does as a motivator, what that does as, you know, a hat that her father forces himself to wear for his entire lifetime. This interesting generational concept of the life that she was able to lead, coming of age in the 1970s, the early 1980s, that was so different to the one that he felt forced into. This show and its writing is all about connection. And what transcends the sort of basic emotional premise here of just trying to get to know this man through the memories that she has of him, and interrogate, navigating those is the structure, which I think is just extraordinary. I think this is truly a work of genius from book writer Lisa Krohn, because not unlike memory and trying to piece together something from years before, parts of which you've blocked out, parts of which you feel sort of guilt around, parts of which are inherently uncomfortable. You are remembering everything in a different order. And one memory prompts another. And one reflection of on something that was said takes you back to a much younger age. And that is how we see the story of Fun Home. We meet older Alison writing this graphic novel, but we also perceive her at two younger ages, the adolescent version at college, coming to terms with her sexuality, meeting Joan, the young woman who had become her girlfriend, returning to her family home, trying to tell her parents about all of this, trying to get to know her father and what little time they have together. But we also have younger Alison, who we meet in a place of, you know, considerably more innocence, which means that her father's behavior around her is a little different. There are things that she notices newly, on reflection, with the information that she now has, but it is non linear and the pace is deliberately inconsistent. And there is a tendency to Search more deeply into moments. There's also, on occasion, a tendency to look away from those which are painful. I'm also deeply fascinated by what is and what isn't presented to the audience, because arguably, if you were telling this kind of a story, you would want to retain the revelation of how he chose to end his life or the very fact that he did until the. The climax of the thing. The fact that we know that up front, though, is so much more powerful because it colors everything that is going to happen subsequently, including one of the most important emotional moments of the show, which is sung when Allison and her father share a car journey and through beautifully written musical monologue, I believe, a song called Telephone Wire. But the lyric that she sings repeatedly to herself is say something. That is what she is trying to urge herself to do in this moment, when she can connect to her father now that they both know who the other is. Truly, on a very genuine level, she is willing herself to connect with him, to seize this opportunity. And there's some regret mixed in with that as well, because. And this is utterly brilliant, and this is written into the material, I believe there are a couple of moments when the version of Allison in the story changes. What I mean by that is older Allison, the one who is writing the graphic novel and studying her own memories for inspiration, inserts herself into the story in order to take this car journey. And it is she who sings, say something rendering even more painful, because she knows ultimately that she isn't going to and that this is a regret that she's going to have. Beyond her father's imminent death, Alder Allison also inserts herself into the staging of her own life story and her own memories in another beautifully powerful way. And I knew Ring of Keys because I'd seen it performed on the Tonys. I had assumed that it would come much earlier in the show. You know, if you're telling the very basic, traditionally structured story of her life, this is a very early moment because this is one of the first sort of light bulb flashes for a young Alison when she sees an older lesbian woman. And she recognizes some sort of cultural kinship in her, but also some level of attraction. And she's singing your swagger and your bearing and the just right clothes you're wearing. This moments after an argument with her father when she's asked if she can have a crew cut rather than keeping her hair out of her face with a barrette, which he insists that she wear. And I had no idea that it fell so late in the show. And it's so beautiful that it arrives when it does. I could get emotional talking about it, but it's really. It's a really powerful thing that it's placed where it is. It is done so deliberately. And, you know, it's not informing us of anything we don't already know. We don't need for her to have a sort of a pre coming out song because many minutes prior to this, in this hundred minute, one act musical, she's already had a sexual experience for the first time with a young woman named Joan at college. And she sings, I'm changing my major to sex with Joan. And that's a glorious song. We arguably are stepping backwards to see a younger version of her being like, look at that woman who's just walked into the diner and that ring of keys that she has. But there's something so beautiful in it. And B, the other thing I didn't know is that for the purposes of this memory and this piece of theatrical storytelling, the woman she's looking at is the older version of herself who now has the haircut that she wanted as a little girl, who now dresses the way that she wants to, that is now living this entire realized life on her own terms. It's a glorious thing. But she's standing there silently in one spot while the younger version of herself sees her with admiration and unlocked joy and awakening. I believe that's also written into the materials, the show, rather than a choice for this production specifically. But there is a moment at the very end that I think could have been new for this, when we do sort of the opposite of that, when younger Alison replaces older Alison at her desk and she takes over drawing the cartoons. And we've seen her do this in her childhood, this thing that she has a passion and a gift for, even though her father, you know, wanted her to use her artistic talents for something more serious and credible. His words, not mine. But I think just that moment of her drawing this through the eyes and heart of her younger self is also a really lovely and clever choice. Now, we can't move beyond a conversation about the material without talking about this extraordinary score from Janine Tesori, one of her best, which is truly saying something worth pointing out as well. It is a minority of musicals, even those with strong feminist themes and leading female roles, which are written and staged entirely by a team of women. Like Waitress, is another example of this. But you really don't encounter all that many. And Janine Tesori across many shows. I'm thinking about Violet and Kimberly Akimbo And Caroline Orchain writes a musical monologue that goes on an extraordinary journey with such dexterity and passionate skill and the prevailing quality of so many of these, because it's rooted in shame, not just for its queer characters, like I said, Alison's mother, also a fascinating woman, as presented in this one, who has led a very difficult, self sacrificing existence. She sings this rapturous song called Days and Days, in which she sort of conveys to Allison the source of her pain and resentment and what she wishes for her daughter and the difficulty of the marriage that she has endured. But, yeah, these songs emerge from a place of repression and blossom like unlikely flowers in a fraught winter with these deeply clever and layered metaphorical lyrics full of double meanings accompanying these melodic swells, which, very importantly, thinking about, you know, how Sondheim would write to a lyric, behave in a conversational way, the lyric falls naturally on the music. It feels just like a complete musicalized thought, as if it is a song exploding out of a brilliant acting performance. I feel very lucky to see a show these days that has a moment like Dear Bill does in Operation Mincemeat. And then you go see a musical like Fun Home and it has four or five, five of those moments, and you think, oh, there's great musical theater. And then there's extraordinary. There's another song like this towards the very end of the show that Allison's father, Bruce Bechdel, sings, and he is principally writing to her about a new house that he has bought and is renovating. This is a passion project of his, in addition to running the Bechtel Funeral Home, which is what the title Fun Home refers to. I'll get back to that in just a second. But after restoring their own family home and tending to it with considerable care and maintaining it, this all being something of a metaphor for the life that he is pretending to live and carefully maintaining versus the life that he is actually living and the affairs that he is often dangerously, even criminally conducting. But he, in perhaps one of his last correspondences, I believe, with his daughter, tells her about this house that he is working on. And there's a recurring lyric where he talks about, you know, how much work it is to maintain all of this, what an undertaking it is, the burden of trying to, you know, get this house together. We can understand what that means, what that's actually talking about. There's a line where he says, when the sun comes in and hits, I think, the wallpaper, something like that. It doesn't matter what he's saying, because what he's really saying is like there are these flashes of joy and promise and freedom and there are these moments when he can glimpse happiness and the life that he thinks he might be able to live. But those moments are too fleeting ultimately to feel real. And just when you think every song I'm going to tell you about is this incredibly heavy, moving, deep monologue, there is a standout musical number earlier in the show when young Alison and her two siblings are performing in the unmistakable style of the Jackson 5 very I Want yout Back this proposed TV ad for the Bechdel Funeral Home. And it's a giddily fun number as they're singing Come to the fun home. That's the Bechdel Funeral Home, baby. What it is, what it is. It's so good. And I'll tell you a little bit more about the staging of it while I tell you about the rest of the creative choices of this production.
- [19:04]
A
I love days like these at the pool, but my moderate to severe plaque psoriasis can sometimes take me out of the moment. Moment I'm ready to make a splash with clearer skin thanks to Skyrizi risankizumab RZA Skyrizi is a prescription only injection for adults who are candidates for systemic or phototherapy. At four months, most people saw 90% clearer skin when measured from head to toe and many were even 100% plaque free. People also saw significant improvement in psoriasis symptoms of pain, redness, itching and burning.
- [19:33]
B
Don't use if allergic to Skyrism. Serious allergic reactions, increased infections or lower ability to fight them may occur before treatment. Get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor about any flu like symptoms or vaccines.
- [19:45]
A
Now there's nothing on my skin thanks to Skyrizi and that means everything. Ask your doctor about Skyrizi, the number one dermatologist prescribed biologic and psoriasis. Visit skyrizi.com or call 1-866-Skyrizi to learn more.
- [20:02]
B
Everyone treats summer like it owes you happiness. Long days, pool parties, your best life on a loop. So what does it mean when you feel worse? The summer blues are real. It's why summer is one of the busiest stretches of the year for people starting therapy. Grow Therapy is here for all the moments when you decide you want more. More support, more clarity. More tools. GROW connects you with thousands of high quality licensed therapists across the US offering both virtual and in sessions, nights and weekends. The therapist you want takes your insurance on. Grow grow accepts over 125 insurance plans sessions average $21 with insurance, and some pay as little as $0, depending on their plan. Visit growththerapy.com acast today to get started. That's growththerapy.com acast growtherapy.com acasta availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.
- [21:09]
C
So this production of Fun Home at the Royal Exchange has been directed by Sarah Frankham. With such heartfelt attention to detail and thoughtfulness throughout and this overwhelming notion of stillness and investigation. It is a memory play. It's a fragmented, messy memory play that, like I said, emerges out of shame. And so it's vitally necessary that we as an audience have the opportunity to study each of these characters who have their own chances, many of them to be unlikable and to be guarded and, you know, until they're really able to articulate themselves. We take issue with both of her parents in different moments. To that end. There is this often very steadily moving revolve in the center of the space. This set that has been designed by Peter Butler fairly minimally and that does multiple things among them. It turns a character in a place of stillness so that we all have the chance to study their expression. It also sort of, as memory tends to do, sends the whole thing spiraling around itself. You know, we see scenes like Ring of Keys that already tell us something that we knew, but perhaps deepen our relationship with certain characters or our insights into certain facets of their lives. Fairly early on. We understand where everything is placed in this home, where everything belongs, and we understand what we might potentially be looking at if we were to examine under the surfaces in terms of the home itself. I mentioned the challenges of adapting a very visual medium to the stage in a theater when you can't bring on a lot of set pieces. But on reflection, now that I think about it, so much of it is there in the script specifically, and the lyrics. They talk endlessly about the particular details of this home and its curtains and its upholstery. And we see a couple of examples of this. But for the most part, we encounter four vitally important set pieces. One of these is the desk that older Allison is working at as she is compiling this graphic novel. Another is the chaise long that sort of typifies that family home aesthetic. It is also the piece of furniture on which Bruce asks a young man to recline before initiating a sexual encounter with him while his wife plays piano one room away and his children are watching television. We also see a small television set, and we see that piano that his wife, Mrs. Bechdel is playing. I should give her more than Mrs. Bechdel, actually. Her name is Helen and this is one of the first real opportunities we have have to get to know her is when she's sitting at this piano and practicing something. And I'm going to talk a lot about Alex Young's performance, but the very way that she is sort of stumbling over this melody is instantly indicative of the fact that though she has sat at this piano stool, though her fingers are on the keys, her mind is in the next room down the hall. So at this point in the show, we don't necessarily know that she all the way knows what's happening with her husband and his infidelity, but we know that she at the very least, least suspects it. And make no mistake, she is also a very important character here in the solar system of Allison and her father and her mother and that they are all realized with these different set pieces. For Alder Allison, perhaps that desk is a continuation of the TV set that younger Allison is often watching and turning up the volume on so she doesn't hear her parents arguing. She sees cartoons on screen and that inspires her. We also see one of the like 60s, early 70s TV shows, shows that she's enjoying, come to vibrant life. And there is another very important character, tethered set piece, which is wheeled on and off. And that is the bed in middle Allison's college dormitory room. This being, you guessed it, indicative of her sexual awakening, her queer identity. And as far as resting places go in the show, it's not the only one that we see because very comically, at one point, Bruce Bechtel is showing a prospective mourner a coffin that their relative may be laid to rest in. And after they've finished playing this brief sort of poignant and tender scene, that same coffin becomes the playground of Bruce's three children as they perform this Jackson 5 style number. Come to the fun home as they are creating this TV ad for the Bechtel Funeral Home. Jenny Jackson, as well as being the intimacy director for this production, always an important role, but particularly for a show like this, is also the choreographer and I love the child Childish glee with which they run in circles around this open casket. It's so playground fun, it's so truthful to adolescents. And there is just enough choreography that it feels like something that kids could have come up with. But it's probably the most raucous applause of the entire evening because it's such a great song amongst a very tonally different show. Meanwhile, I want to talk about a lighting moment that happens towards the end of the show that incorporates Peter Park Butler's design and Bethany Gupwell's lighting. Because for years now, Aaron, my partner, has been telling me about the London production of the show, the UK premiere which he saw at the Young Vic, and this moment when an entire house was revealed, and the shock of that, this sort of coup de theatrical staging. And we had both inferred, based on this in the round space in Manchester, that this wasn't going to be possible in the same way at the Royal Exchange. I mean, it's not just that the audience surrounds the stage, stage entirely, it's that the walls of the thing are glass and you can see out to all of the stage management and the shuffling of props and set pieces that is happening beyond the auditorium itself. Instead, there was this circular network of traditional lamp lighting, the likes of which you would associate with a home of the style of the Bechtel home as it is described, which at what I can only assume is the same point, because there's like a swell in the orchestra. And it's when Allison returns to her home after leaving it for the first time with her college girlfriend, Joan, and Joan reacts to the house. At this point, that lighting descends lower into the auditorium. And I love things like this because, you know, you're in the round, you can't bring on an entire house, you can't throw money at the problem, because that's not going to solve it. What can you do that is innovative, that is thoughtful, that's going to give us the same sense of grandeur and, you know, allow us to stand where Joan is standing and see this house with some sense of wonderment? It's not entirely the same thing as putting an entire house on stage, but it's a really clever thing to be able to do. And this is what I like about intimate theatre in small spaces. When they make innovative choices like this. I love stuff like that. But throughout the production, it is a very mindful lighting design. And there isn't that much opportunity in a show like this to, you know, exhibit all that much creative flourish, because it is largely very naturalistic. The very nature of these characters and their true, authentic selves and the lives that they perpetrate in order to disguise, that necessitates a real honesty in the dramatic approach and the storytelling approach. However, there are these beautiful little metaphorical references in the lyric. And so, like in Bruce's final song, the way that that glow comes into the lighting design, but then what it subsequently represents it's like stirring, ultimately devastating. It's such a great way of moving you with lighting and these little simple things that build together to create something that is just profoundly striking. All of this brilliantly realized under director Sarah Frankham, whose best work in this production I think is found in its performances. Let me tell you about this cast.
- [29:03]
A
I love days like these at the pool, but my moderate to severe plaque psoriasis can sometimes take me out of the moment. I'm ready to make a splash with clearer skin thanks to Skyrizi rizankizumab RZA Skyrizi is a prescription only injection for adults who are candidates for systemic or phototherapy. At four months, most people saw 90% clearer skin when measured from head to toe and many were even 100% plaque free. People also saw significant improvement in psoriasis, symptoms of pain, redness, itching and burning.
- [29:32]
B
Don't use if allergic to Skyrizi. Serious allergic reactions increased infections or lower ability to fight that may occur before treatment. Get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor about any flu like symptoms or vaccines.
- [29:44]
A
Now there's nothing on my skin thanks to Skyrizi and that means everything. Ask your doctor about Skyrizi, the number one dermatologist prescribed biologic and psoriasis. Visit skyrizi.com or call 1-866-Skyrizi to learn more.
- [30:01]
B
Everyone treats summer like it owes you. Happiness. Long days, pool parties, your best life on a loop. So what does it mean when you feel worse? The summer blues are real. It's why summer is one of the busiest stretches of the year for people starting therapy. Growtherapy is here for all the moments when you decide you want more. More support, more clarity, more tools. GROW connects you with thousands of high quality licensed therapists across the US offering both virtual and in person sessions, nights and weekends. The therapist you want takes your insurance on growing. Grow accepts over 125 insurance plans. Sessions average $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. Visit growththerapy.com acast today to get started. That's growthherapy.com acast growtherapy.com acast availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. Foreign.
- [31:09]
C
Let's start with the Allisons and there is a team of young performers playing the trio of Bechtel family children. You only really encounter the two brothers for that one extended scene when they're doing the number Come to the Fun Home. The song is so fun. I'm gonna go listen to it again right after I finish telling you about this show. But Harriet o' Shea played young Alison at this performance, and it's a more complex young musical theatre role than most because she's sort of on the precipice of figuring out things about herself and that she doesn't quite fit in with the picture of a little girl that her father is trying to assert on her. She doesn't want to wear the dress that he is making her try on to go to a party. And she kind of bristles when exposed to the shame that he tries to force on her when he tries to make her feel like he does, ultimately. And telling her, you know, every other little girl is going to be wearing a dress, and if you don't, then everyone's going to think you're unusual and they're going to say all of these things about you. At the very height of her performance, of course, is Ring of Keys, which is not just beautifully sung, but so charmingly realized. There is such an intention in her eye line which happened to be placed right next to me. I got to watch her sort of over the shoulder of Jodie McNee as older Allison, and see just this tilt in her head, this searching quality as she is recognizing something and deriving joy from that. The way that this expression lit her up. It's exactly the way to interpret this song. And, you know, it's really rich in sophisticated material for a young performer. I thought she did a great job. This, along with the song that they sang around the coffin. Again, a huge applause moment, rightfully deserved. We grow up just a little. To Alice Audrey o' Hanlon as middle Allison. And for any LGBTQIA audience members watching this show, there is something instantly recognizable in this awkward and nervous and a little terrified, but also enthusiastic and purposeful quality of her coming to terms with herself and coming out first to a young woman that she is attracted to. And this stance, this insistence that she is asexual, which she almost instantly reneges on. She has the widest emotional range of any part of Alison's life because she plays the sort of trauma and exhilaration and disappointment and later, really complex confusion of the coming out process of letting her parents know about this and then experiencing what they have to tell her in response. I also just loved the sort of wide eyed, disbelieving euphoria with which she sang Changing My Major again. Recognizable, familiar, truthful. Jody McNee then plays the fully grown up Alison Bechdel, the one who frames the entire production, who is the ever present leading role of the show. And there's this brilliant, scrutinizing quality that finds time for embarrassment and hesitation and regret and all of these complicated feelings. This entire musical, this entire experience of looking back on this actual life is all complicated feelings. But the way in which she studies these versions of herself, but particularly her father, her through the lens of those memories, it's always fascinating to watch. You could have, I think, a very interesting time watching her watch everything else that's happening. It becomes inherently quite detached as she sets herself apart from it all. But when she steps into her own memories, when she sits beside her father in the car and they are slowly moved around the space on this revolve sat shoulder to shoulder, though she turns away and sings outward, pleading with herself. Herself. Say something. I really love her vocal delivery of this song. Among her prior credits, next to no musical theater. But like I said, again, truth is there in the anguish of the delivery of this lyric. And Janine Tesori has a way of writing these musical monologue songs for actors. However much of a singer you are is going to speak to tone and range and power, whatever. But if you're an actor, if you understand this character that you're playing, you can sing this material. Then speaking of great material, we have Nigel Harmon as Bruce Bechtel. I've thoroughly enjoyed him before, particularly in another Jeanine Tesori show, but that was as Lord Farquaad in Shrek the Musical. This is considerably different. And it's a remarkable grown up role for an actor. The amount of his soul that he is positioned to bear through this material deliberately. The depiction of his marriage and his relationship with his wife Helen, you know, we're left asking certain questions. We're shown just enough to kind of begin to figure it out. But there are other things we would probably like to know, given the opportunity. Nigel eschews just about anything predictable in crafting this really human character who experiences these disparate manic mood swings, these peaks of volatile, even violent anger and frustration, these moments of tenderness and longing. Such longing, this aching longing quality that he exhibits. It's a role that demands an awful lot of the actor who steps into these shoes. And he does so brilliantly. I should mention really stellar supporting work from Natasha Cottrill and Luca Chadwick Patel, particularly in their book scenes, I thought really well delivered. But the performance I cannot stop thinking about that was just so incandescent was Alex Young as Helen Bechdel. And Alex Young is a performer who I have admired for such a long time. She has the most extraordinary capacity for range, tonally speaking, because she does classic musical theatre, she does Sondheim, she does contemporary stuff, she is hilariously funny. This is not a comedy role by any stretch of the imagination. This is a heartbreaking, complex character and it's astonishing and wild that she's only recently finished playing Monty in Operation Mincemeat. And then she can go into a role like this that she feels born to play, giving the kind of mesmerizing tear jerking performance, which reminds you she is the heir apparent to the Jenna Russell's of this industry, the Maria Friedmans of this industry, and Julia McKenzie and Imelda Staunton. She is that fantastic an actress. And everyone had better take notice of Alex Young, if you haven't already, because those are the highest heights to which she is inevitably ascending. Every scene she plays is utterly captivating. Every masked facial expression, every layer of thought that is passing through her mind as she is navigating ever complicated situations in her home. It is all clear to us and it all arises so naturally. She comes to life on this stage in a way that nothing feels like a conceit for even a second second at the peak of the mountain. That is the song Days and Days, when she sort of throws her head back and opens her arms and stares upwards into this symphony of lights that is suspended above her. And she sings out, welcome to our house on Maple Avenue. And it's got to be so satisfying as a performer to live in that kind of a moment, to be so in control of the full force of your considerable creative powers. Under different circumstances, I would be saying, go and see this show for Alex Young's performance alone, as it happens, everything about it is extraordinary. And it is, as I have now discovered, years after everyone else first found this out when it played on Broadway, a stunningly well written piece of musical theatre. I dare say, among the best of the last 25 years. Those, then, have been my rather positive thoughts about Fun Home at the Royal Exchange. How absolutely fantastic to have something hyped up for so long and force yourself to wait, to really get to know it on its own proper terms and then be so satisfied for this to live up to its full, lofty expectations. I am overjoyed. I wish that I had the chance to go and see this again at the Royal Exchange. I don't know that I will, but I'm also hoping that that choice is taken away from me because this production absolutely deserves to sell out this theatre. Go and see these incredible performances. Go and see this staggering piece of writing. Go and see this utterly unique theatrical auditorium. You are never going to have a theatrical experience like this again. It is so emotionally potent. Go and check it out for yourselves. Wholehearted recommendation from me and then come right back here and let me know what you thought. In the meantime, thank you so much for listening to this full review. I thoroughly enjoyed sharing it with you. If you would like to hear more of my thoughts thoughts about the rest of the shows that I have seen, then you can find many of them here wherever you are seeing my face or hearing my voice. Or you can subscribe for the many more which are coming soon. You can also, like I said, follow me on podcast platforms. You can sign up to my weekly substack email newsletter to stay up to date with all of the shows that I'm seeing. Leave a comment, tell a friend, and most importantly, buy a ticket to go see Fun Home if you can make it to Manchester. In the meantime, I have been Mickey Jo and as always I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a stagey day for ten more seconds. I'm Mickey Jo Theater. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a stagey day. Subscribe.
- [40:53]
A
I love days like these at the pool, but my moderate to severe plaque psoriasis can sometimes take me out of the moment. I'm ready to make a splash with clear skin thanks to Skyrizi risankizumab RZA Skyrizi is a prescription only injection for adults who are candidates for systemic or phototherapy. At four months, most people saw 90% clearer skin when measured from head to toe and many were even 100% plaque free. People also saw significant improvement in psoriasis, symptoms of pain, redness, itching and burning.
- [41:22]
B
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A
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- [41:52]
C
Grainger knows when you're a procurement manager
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B
for an office park, you're not managing
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C
one building, you're managing all of them. And to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners. Lights about to fail, Filters ready to clog H Vac on its last leg.
- [42:06]
B
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- [42:10]
C
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